Motor vehicles may be equipped with a plurality of sensors, such as ultrasound sensors or video sensors, in order, for example, to gather information about the surroundings of the motor vehicle. The fastening and aligning of these sensors on the vehicle deserve great importance, in this context, so that the functioning of the sensors may be ensured.
In particular, in motor vehicles, video sensors are used in larger numbers for gathering information on the surroundings. Stereo camera systems, for instance, are used for observing the road space located ahead of the motor vehicle, for object recognition or the measurement of distance from a preceding motor vehicle. In this context, in stereo camera systems two video sensors are used, which are positioned in such a manner that they record essentially the same scene.
German Published Patent Application No. 101 62 652.5 describes methods for fastening video sensors in the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle, the sensor being connected via a holding element to a support, especially the inner side of the windshield or the roof. A disadvantage of these methods is that no precise mechanical alignment of the sensors is undertaken. Especially in the case of stereo camera systems, the commonly recorded viewing angle of the video sensors determines the useful range of the system, since for the evaluation of the image information, overlapping image ranges of both video sensors may be needed. The precise mechanical alignment of the video sensors, that is, the setting of the sensor axis, plays a decisive role here for the useful range of the stereo camera system and for the subsequent image processing.
In this context, the sensor axis is regarded as a preferred direction having a view of the measuring process. In a video sensor, the optical axis corresponds to the sensor axis.